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WhatsApp enable end-to-end encryption on all platforms

Apr

6

2016

WhatsApp has the update that end-to-end encryption for all platforms brings finalized. Both Android and iOS and Windows Mobile 10 and BB10 thereby supporting the Signal Protocol for secure chat and voice communications.

WhatsApp users that the latest version on a device with Android, iPhone, Windows 10 Mobile, Nokia S40, Nokia S60, Blackberry or BB10 run, now support the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption, reports Moxie Marlinspike. He is responsible for adding security and developed the cryptographic Axolotl protocol, which last week by developer Open Whisper Systems was renamed to Signal Protocol.

With support for the Signal Protocol supports WhatsApp now on the venues referred to end-to-end encryption, which means that information is encrypted by the sender and can only be read by the recipient with Forward Secrecy. Since not every user update its software, WhatsApp gives warnings when conversations are still ongoing in plain text or unencrypted voice. Users can view the encryption status of individual conversations and group chats in the conversation window or in the institutions.

If the service finds that supports a contact end-to-end encryption, the encrypted communication is done from then on. Even after a downgrade in clear text communication no longer possible, for safety reasons. “Ultimately expired all pre-e2e capable clients, and send from that time or accept new versions of the software, no plaintext messages anymore,” Marlinspike wrote.

WhatsApp allows for verification of sessions through a qr code or a code that users can read aloud. This refers to a numerical fingerprint twelve times five songs. If users change code, contacts can here optionally be notified of.

WhatsApp publishes details on the use of encryption in a white paper . Messages about the coming end-to-end encryption were already longer around. WhatsApp claims to have more than a billion users. The arrival of the strong security ensures that intelligence agencies can not directly view the communication of all the users worldwide. For years the debate whether encryption should be so strong that intelligence can not reach the data, a debate that intensified since Apple FBI demanded to unlock an iPhone. According to Marlinspike go messaging services integrate Signal Protocol in their services.